Discoveries Of The Week

Thirteen year old Annabelle Tickle was getting stuck into a frozen strawberry lemonade supplied by those lovely people from McDonald’s when she felt a tickle in her throat and tasted blood in her mouth. After further investigation, involving sticking her fingers down her throat, she pulled out an inch-long wooden shard. The company with the golden arches has launched a full investigation.

If that wasn’t bad enough consider the shock Stacey Hanlon from County Durham when she was feeding her seven-month old sprog a helping of mashed-up apple and blueberry pudding from Boots organic baby food range. Nestling within this doubtless appetising repast was a woodlouse. Now some would claim that this discovery reinforced the authenticity of the organic claim but la Hanlon was appalled and took the case up with Boots. She has been offered £25 compo.

When I was a child we used to joke that if you swallowed a seed or a pip you would have a tree growing in your insides – ah, innocent days. Well this may not be so far-fetched as it seems judging from a story I came across this week from that hotspot of zaniness, the Urals. Artyom Sidorkin had been complaining of extreme pains in his chest and was coughing up blood so he was due an operation on what was thought to be a serious tumour – is there any other sort?

On opening up poor Mr Sidorkin, the surgeon was shocked to find that what was touching his capillaries and causing severe pain was a spruce. It is thought he must have inhaled a seed which sprouted into a small fir tree in his lung. After felling the foreign object, the surgeon declared him fit as a fiddle.